August 20, 2014
Hello family and friends,
I can’t believe that I am going to be in
the mission field in Virginia in two weeks. The days here in the CCM go by slow
but the weeks just fly by. It’s so strange to think that I have been away from
Arizona for almost a full month.
Last P-day, Elder Mann, from New
Zealand, and I taught a bunch of Latinos from Mexico and Colombia how to play
two hand touch rugby. After we played with them for a little bit, they said
that they really liked it and they thought it was as fun as soccer. Now that´s
an accomplishment to get a Latino to say that another sport is just as good as
soccer, or as it is called here, futbol.
The guys Brazil and the Dominican
Republic wanted to arm wrestle me because they thought they could beat me, but
I ended up winning both times.
There has been a package being sent around
our district that includes a bunch of treats from a mystery friend. There are also 50 pesos in the package with
instructions to buy treats and then send the package to another person in our
district. Elder McCall and I were able to figure out that it was Elder Schwartz
who started it all, but we haven’t told him that we know it is him. Elder
Schwartz is so selfless.
It has been hard to sleep at night in
the CCM, lately. It’s always too hot in our dorms because there is no air
conditioning, so we have to open our windows at night to at least get some air circulation.
The problem is Mexico City is busy like New York City is. It’s a party all
night long. You can hear lots of traffic noise because there are over 20
million people here in Mexico City, and the people here really like to honk
their car horns and set off fireworks all night long so that you end up trying
to sleep with a ton of noise going on around you. Thursday night, Elder McCall
and I were sleeping and then we woke up at 1:00 a.m. to this super weird noise
coming from a speakerphone. We honestly thought there was some type of alien
invasion or something because the voice coming out of the speaker was so
distorted and they were saying the same thing over and over again. One of our Latinos
friends in our dorm was awake so we had him come listen to the noise. After he
listened for a couple of seconds he started laughing and said it was only a
tamale truck driving by the CCM and the person on the speakerphone was just
saying “'Tamales, get your tamales here,” in Spanish.
On Friday, Elder McCall and I went to purchase
something at the tienda, or store, here at the CCM. We get 100 pesos a week to
spend at the tienda. When we got there we
found out that they weren’t accepting credit cards or the cash cards that missionaries
receive each week. So, Elder McCall went over to get some pesos from the card
machine but instead of pulling out a 100 pesos he ended up pulling out 1000
pesos, about 70 US dollars. The card
machine wouldn’t let him deposit the money back in. I guess he’ll have to spend it all before he
leaves.
On Saturday I had a couple of really
cool experiences. In the morning our teacher had us do this activity where he
paired us up with someone in our district. Then we were instructed to talk about
what we each felt like we were struggling with here in the MTC. Then we were
supposed to receive revelation for that person to help them become a better
missionary. I was partnered up with Elder B. He told me about himself and then
explained that he had been struggling with learning Spanish, since I’m district
leader I already knew this but, and he felt like it was because of a lack of
faith. After he told me all the information, I prayed that I would be able to
receive inspiration on how to help him with his problem. Instead of receiving
an answer on how to help him with his faith, I felt impressed that faith wasn't
a problem for him at all but it was his works [work ethic]. So I showed him a
bunch of scriptures that talked about how it was important to have faith but it
was also really important to have works. Ever since we did that activity, Elder
B. has been working really, really hard to learn the language. I think that
what I told him was definitely what the Lord wanted him to hear.
Later in the day on Saturday, our
district got the opportunity to teach a person that was pretending to be a less
active member. However, our teacher came up to Elder McCall and I and told us
he wanted us to teach a REAL less active member. Elder McCall and I were really
worried at first because all the other lessons we had taught had either been
with a staff member here in the CCM who was pretending to be an investigator or
one of our fellow missionaries was pretending to be an investigator, so we
prayed before we went in to teach her. Elder McCall and I taught a woman named
Taynia who was lives in Mexico City. After we talked to her for a little bit, we
felt like we needed to teach her about the Plan of Salvation. Even though we
were teaching in our broken Spanish and we had a hard time understanding her
because she was speaking so fast, I feel like the lesson went really well. We got her to pray at the end of the lesson,
which is always a good thing.
Our zone leaders for the past two weeks
left for the field two days ago so we got two new zone leaders. Every day we
teach three lessons to investigators, two of the lessons are with our two
teachers who are pretending to be an investigator and the other lesson is with
one of the other missionaries of our district. On
Monday night we were teaching one of
the missionaries from our district. Elder McCall and I had a lesson prepared
and as we started talking with them we felt like we needed to abandon our
previously planned lesson plan and talk only about El Libro de Mormon[the book
of Mormon] Elder McCall and I spent twenty minutes teaching him about El Libro
de Mormon and then we bore our testimony. The spirit was so strong during the
lesson especially when Elder McCall and I were bearing our testimonies. When I
was bearing my testimony I felt the spirit so strong and I have never felt the
spirit so strong before in my life. It was an amazing experience and I definitely
learned from that lesson that it is so important to follow the spirit and teach
what the spirit tells you to teach.
On Monday morning we had to say goodbye
to our Latino friends, which was really sad because I’ve really grown to like
all of those guys. Yesterday night we got a new group of Latino friends. This is our third group because Latinos stay
here only 2 weeks whereas we are here for 6. The new Latinos that share our
dorm are so amazing. One of the Latinos knows English really well and he speaks
Spanish really fast so its going to be a really good opportunity for us for
white guys who are staying with them because it will help us to understand
Spanish when people are speaking fast.
Every Tuesday night we have a
devotional. Last night Elder Piper from the Area seventy came to talk to us. He
talked about the importance of missionaries and members working together. He
said, “To have success as a missionary in bringing others to Christ and to
hasten God´s work, depends on our ability to be one with the members.” I never
realized how important it is, as members, to be close to the missionaries and
work together with them to bring souls to Christ. I would like to encourage
every one back home and anyone who is reading my letter to work closely with
the missionaries in your area so that you can bring souls to Christ.
Sincerely,
Elder Cannon
Here is a picture of me and the Latinos who have been in our dorm that past two weeks. They are Elder Alvarez on the left and Elder Santamaria on the right. They left Tuesday morning.
Picture of me and Elder Nascimiento from Brazil (left) and Elder Alva from Mexico (right).
